Emerson College Los Angeles kicked off a week-long celebration of its new $85 million Hollywood campus at 5960 West Sunset Blvd. with a grand opening gala March 8, attended by guests including Tom Bergeron, Norman Lear, Max Mutchnick, Joely Fisher, Larry David, Jennifer Coolidge and Eric Garcetti, who said the school "will give graduates the skills they need to build exciting careers and keep our entertainment jobs in Los Angeles." Says Emerson L.A. founding director Kevin Bright, the Emmy-winning executive producer of Friends, "We were in a rental building out in Burbank -- now we've almost doubled our capacity and can take up to 200 students." Bright graduated from Emerson's Boston main campus in 1976; the L.A. program was launched 27 years ago.

Emerson was No. 8 on THR's 2013 list of America's best film schools. Its students also study and do internships in TV, music, media and marketing. Bright is glad the board declined two other architects' proposals and went with the 10-story, 100,000-plus-square-foot design by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Thom Mayne. "I told them, 'You have to decide if you want a square building that's innocuous or a work of art. Thom Mayne is gonna build a work of art.' Now our 4,000 alumni in California have a place to invest in and take part in."

Emerson offers free building tours March 10-14 at noon, 5:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m., and March 15 at 10 a.m., 2 p.m., 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. The other grand opening events are: